What I've learned, episode 1

Never compare yourself to others.

It's a huge part of being human, comparing ourselves to others. It's how we learn from infancy. We learn that these people are like us, those people aren't. Boys are different from girls. Adults are different from kids. We are grouped by class in school, by jobs, by our likes or dislikes. We seek out others like ourselves, and contrast ourselves to those who are not like us. It's how we find our tribe.

But especially in the internet age, it's dangerous to our wellness. One of my research areas is the use of social media. What I am learning is that it can be awesome, and it can be terrible. Some research has shown that extended use of Facebook increases unhappiness and depression among young adults. Why? Because they are comparing their lives to the lives they see on Facebook.

This makes perfect sense. Although I'm not on Facebook*, I get it. Like any internet venue for communication (Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc.), we always want to put our best foot forward. Sometimes we put things out there, fishing for praise or reassurance. Sometimes, we genuinely want people to celebrate with us. But think about, we Instagram pictures of beautiful plates of food, not the leftover pizza we're eating in our pajamas. We use internet platforms as an extension of our out-of-the-house lives. When we go to work, we tend to brush our hair, put on nice clothes, right? We put on a front. Depending on the job, we may use different language, address our bosses or coworkers differently than we do spouses, kids or friends. We assume an out-of-the-house persona because that is what is socially acceptable. (At least where I work)

That's what we do online, except we don't have the face to face interaction. That's what keeps us grounded in reality. Our online personas only showcase the best of what we have to offer. After all, we can take a million selfies and delete most of them. In real life, you can't delete the bad hair day.

So we see our friends, acquaintances and celebrities highlighting the best parts of themselves. And we compare ourselves, coming up short. We see the high school friend whose kid made the honor roll and compare it a kid whose homework isn't done. We see the house they built with their bare hands over a weekend and despair about the dirty dishes in the sink.

It's not a fair comparison. They (like you) are only showing the pretty parts of their lives. You don't know about what isn't pretty in their lives. Think about that.
YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS GOING ON IN THEIR LIVES.
It could be as awesome as you imagine, or it could be horrible. I have no clue what is going on in someone else's head.

We all put on a persona. Some people are really awesome at. So awesome that you have no idea they are considering suicide or hate their lives. Looks can be so deceiving.

So give yourself a break. Don't compare yourself to anyone else.







* I like being an early adopter of things. So if I don't get on board fairly early, I usually don't want to do it ever. And if it's ridiculously popular, then my latent hipster tendencies come out. I've never seen Top Gun (remember I am nearly 40) or Titanic or Avatar. If the masses like it, I won't. I usually don't like it anyway, but the popular thing puts me over the edge. And the more I learn about social media, the more Facebook is not for me.